Something Broken
by SpookyDJ
Summary: Sans and Alphys work on a way to stop the human before they ever made it through the Underground (Post-Alphys ending, same timeline as Lonely Monsters).


**Howdy! This is part of a series, and all the stories in this series take place in the same timeline, but that's all that's really going on here. There's not really an overall plotline or anything, and these stories mostly don't have any actual order they take place in, or that they should be read in. You can go and read all the others if you want, or not if you don't want to. Either way, it's perfectly fine! You won't be missing any exposition or anything with this.**

 **This particular part of the series series has quite a bit of headcanon for some of what took place before Frisk fell mixed into it. I don't have much a story in mind for what went on with that, just some ideas, so it's sort of hard to explain anything, I don't quite have it all myself. But hopefully, the few things that are relevant are clear enough that it can be figured out. If not, just pretend that it's (insert flashy, glittery text effects here) ominous backstory.**

 **As for the paper with lines on it, it's supposed to be like the machine that monitors earthquake by drawing a line, and if there's an earthquake the line shakes and zig zags? I think it's called a seismometer, but I can't remember. The papers with lines on them are like that, but they aren't related to earthquakes. I don't know, man, I'm not a scientist. I'm sorry. I tried looking this up but I can't for the life of me figure out what it's called, so I hope I've gotten my point across. If not, just pretend that it's (insert flashy, glittery text effects here) science weirdness.**

 **That's enough explanations, I think, let's just get to the point.**

* * *

It was hard to keep track now of how long the Underground had been reduced to just Hotland. At first, they'd all counted the days, grieved together, tried to figure out how to move on. But it got easier as they recovered. Everyone stopped looking back at the past, and for the first time in a long time everyone looked towards the future. No one down here was truly alone. They could all make it together.

Alphys, of course, did her as the ruler best to make sure it stayed that way. She knew as well as anyone how much the past could hurt you. So she kept her sights on the future, and tried to get everyone else to do the same. Sometimes, it was easy. When everyone was already in good spirits, she barely had to try. But other times, all anyone could think about the monsters that had been lost. Those times, it was hard to encourage herself, let alone what remained of the kingdom.

And this was one of those times. Everyone's spirits were lower than they had been in some time. Progress in rebuilding the kingdom had all but stopped, though no one really minded. When everyone was like this, it was usually best to take some time to recover.

This was exactly what Alphys and Sans were doing. They continued to stick together in the aftermath, even after all this time. It was good for them, having a roommate, and each was the best friend the other had right now. The arrangement worked well for them both, so there wasn't much point in changing something that wasn't broken.

Now, the two were sitting in Alphys' lab, watching a new anime: Spell Priestesses. It'd recently fell from the surface into Waterfall's garbage dump, and neither had even heard of it before, so they wanted to give it a shot. So far, it was certainly different from Mew Mew Kissy Cutie. The protagonists of this new show mostly fought their enemies with magic incantations, rather than cuteness and kisses. There were cute transformation sequences, though, and it was good enough that Alphys still enjoyed it.

(Mew Mew Kissy Cutie was still better, of course, but this might be a close second.)

Other than the new show, it was a pretty normal anime session for them. The fourth episode had just finished, and the opening for the fifth was about halfway through. Alphys had learned all the words by this point, of course, and was singing along. Sans looked over at her and grinned, glad to see her enjoying herself. He was having fun too, of course; he always did when they binge watched anime. Besides that, they stayed quiet, unless they were discussing the show itself.

They were quiet, until he decided to pose a question.

"hey, alph, can i ask you something?"

"Of course you can," she mumbled absently, her eyes still fixed on the show in front of them. As different as it was from Mew Mew Kissy Cutie, it was nice to know she liked this one, too. But that wasn't the subject at the front of his mind.

"what do you think would be the best way to keep everyone's hopes up"

She was silent for a moment, taking time to process the question still paying attention to the new anime. Once she finished she finally reacted, squinting over at Sans with a frown. "You're thinking about a-all that now? Anime night's supposed to be a b-break from all that stuff, n-not..."

He went on, leaving her unanswered. "not just to lift everyone's spirits for a few days. we're already doing that. what i'm talking about is, if it's possible...to keep everyone's hopes up permanently."

Now the show was completely ignored. Alphys bent her head down in thought, considering different options for a few minutes before giving her response. As she spoke, her voice went quiet and quivered a little as she kept thinking.

"Asgore's a-answer was to declare war on humanity and actively try to break the b-barrier for everyone. I'm sure that'd still work now, too. But honestly, i-it's not just unrealistic, it's d-dangerous. One human alone n-nearly wiped out the entire Underground. W-we'd lose a war." She paused for a moment, shivering. "And even if we just found a way to the s-surface, it doesn't matter if there are human s u-up there different f-from that one. Sooner or later, we'd r-run into one of the worse ones, and we wouldn't s-stand a chance..." She glanced over at him again and sighed. "I don't want to get everyone's hopes up just for us all to get killed."

He nodded. "then what would you do?"

"Th-there's only one other option I can think of, but it's j-just as impossible..." Alphys took a breath and closed her eyes as she continued. "If you w-want a permanent solution, I think it's the o-only option, too. But...there's n-no way. There's no way to bring everyone b-back. There's no way to go back a-and stop the human."

"yeah, makes sense. like you said, can't bring everyone back." He chuckled under his breath. "so, got any reasonable solutions in that brain of yours?"

She shrugged, turning back to the television. "Just what we're doing now, I-I guess. Trying to keep going, m-make things as back to normal as they can be. I don't think there's much e-else we can do. It'll never get easy, y-you know?"

"right. but what if it could?"

"Huh?" Alphys tilted her head, but kept her gaze firmly fixed on the television.

"if you could do those impossible solutions and it would work out, and all of this would be easier, would you?" he asked.

"...I still wouldn't d-declare war, and I wouldn't try to e-escape," she said. "Even if it could work out, I-I still wouldn't trust it. I don't have enough faith in humanity for th-that." She paused for a moment. "It's p-possible I'd try to bring everyone back, though. G-go back and stop the human as soon as they arrived. It still...It still _hurts_ , trying to k-keep going but knowing they're g-gone for g-good."

Sans nodded, but stayed silent.

"Why are you asking, anyway?" She frowned at him. "Like I said b-before, anime night's a break from all the s-stuff with running the kingdom."

He chuckled. "just curious, that's all. figured i'd ask while it was on my mind. don't worry alph, i'll leave you alone about it."

* * *

A loud **thump** in the night woke Alphys up. This, of course, wasn't the first time this had happened. Sans was a restless sleeper, he rolled around and fell on the floor all the time. But she was used to those noises. It'd been awhile since that had woken her up. This one was different; quieter, but more purposeful. There'd been some force behind that.

Though she and Sans were effectively roommates now, staying in her lab together, her living situation had barely changed. She still slept in her bed on the second floor, which was usually folded up into something more compact when it wasn't in use. When he'd started staying over, she had offered to put together a similar bed or get him some sort of bed to sleep in. But he had refused, and continued to do so. Apparently it wasn't worth the effort, according to him, since he could sleep just about anywhere. It was hard to believe that at first, since he hadn't been like that at all when they used to work together. But as it turned out, it was true. They'd dragged in an old, tiny couch they found in the dumpster and sat it out of the way on the ground floor, and he slept in it every night. Sure, he fell out of it all the time, but he slept, and that was what mattered. Otherwise, barely anything had changed. The fact that Sans was staying here now was barely noticeable from an outside perspective.

The noise tonight sounded nothing like Sans falling out of his couch, but she wanted to be sure. Quietly, Alphys grabbed a flashlight and escalated down to the first floor to check. She immediately pointed her flashlight at the couch, but he wasn't there, nor on the floor next to it. After that, she pointed it all over the first floor, but he didn't seem to be around at all. There was no sign he'd left, either; his shoes were still sitting by the door, and there was no note or anything like that.

In one final sweep of the lab, Alphys noticed one detail that was off. The bathroom door had been left open. Her bathroom wasn't what was sitting on the other side, thouh. Instead, she was staring at the elevator to the basement, something few monsters knew about. But it was something Sans knew about. She'd found her answer.

One answer lead to more questions, though. Why was Sans down there? He hadn't worked on anything in years, and hadn't shown any interest in even trying. There wasn't any other reason to be down there either. The Amalgamates lived around Hotland like everyone else, and all that was left was old, abandoned experiments. He couldn't be up to anything else down there, besides working on another experiment... What was he up to?

No sense in just wondering, she supposed. It'd be faster to go find out herself.

With a sigh, she got herself into the elevator and pushed the button to take it down. It creaked for a moment, forcing itself into motion before jumbling down. It was an old elevator, and the ride had gotten pretty bumpy recently, but it got the job done well enough. Without much issue, it creaked to a stop and safely landed her down in the lab's basement. She stepped out as soon as the door opened back up.

"Sans?" she called out. When there was no response, she continued calling out for him, pointing her flashlight around to see if she could find him. The lab down here had gotten pretty dark and musty from neglect, since not even she had been down here in awhile. She was really glad now that she'd picked up the flashlight.

Alphys had to wander for awhile before there was any sign of him, but she did eventually find him down there. He was sitting in one of the small, dead-end rooms off of a hallway, which were now pretty much empty. This room, however, had been reoccupied by a large machine. It spit out pieces of paper covered in different lines every few minutes, which they both knew to be reports on their timeline. Tubes hung off of it everywhere and the whole thing was covered in dust. Sans was in the process of cleaning it up and replacing most of the parts, which all looked either rusty or broken. The thing looked a little intimidating at first glance, but she recognized it. This was one of Sans failed experiments, from years ago. From back when they'd used to work together.

"S-Sans...is that...?"

"oh, hey alph." Sans stopped what he was doing and turned his head to grin at her. He actually looked...happy. Happier than she'd seen him in a long time. What was going on here? "thought you'd still be asleep. but you came at a good time, actually. i wanted to ask your opinion on something."

"Sans, w-what are you doing here?" she stammered.

"come on, alph, you gotta have some idea." He rolled his eyes. "you recognize this machine, right?"

"Of course I do, but..." She scratched her cheek. "All of the experiments were failures. Mine were, and yours, too. You proved th-that we couldn't alter the flow of time."

Sans sighed. "right. but..." There was a glint in his eyes as he turned back towards the machine. His voice was getting faster and faster as he continued. "that was just for us monsters. even after the experiments stopped, i've been watching the reports. while the human was here, and even before, they were nuts...timelines jumping left and right, starting and stopping. it's possible, we just never figured it out. but the human did. which means they had something that we didn't."

"U-uuh..." Alphys' eyes grew wide as she watched him talk. He was getting animated now. It'd been so long since he'd been like this, she'd almost forgotten what it'd been like. Now, she was having a hard time keeping up. Was he really trying to get his old experiment to work?

"that's when i started thinking it might be possible after all. the human got it to work! why couldn't we? but i still didn't do anything, because i didn't know what we were missing. until i thought about your experiments. and then i figured it out."

"M-mine? But what could my experiments have to do with-"

He didn't even let her finish her question before he answered it. "it was determination! that was the key all along! we just never thought about it big enough! manipulating time, extracting the determination from souls, creating an almost unlimited supply of energy...those would never be enough to fix everything on their own. we just needed to put them together. that's what was missing."

She blinked. She got it now. And honestly, if he'd let her get a word in edgewise, she would've gotten it sooner. But that didn't really matter right now. They finally had a way to fix things, make things better for everyone. They could stop this from ever happening.

"Sans...th-this is brilliant! We really could fix everything!"

"heh, right." And just like that, it all evaporated away. The animated gestures, the words that came so fast she could barely process them. Sans was still excited, there was no doubt about that. It was just...less visible. That's the way he was. The way he's been, since the experiments stopped. He kneeled down next to his machine, cleaning up some of its lower parts. "that's where you come in, though. i had all this figured out, but, uh... i didn't want to just mess around with determination on my own. i wanted your permission, and your help. you're the expert, after all."

She smiled. "Of course! I have some extra determination still from...before, I'll go get it. W-we'll get this done together."

He smiled, too. "right."

She went off to grab what was left, and once she came back, they got to work together. Sans' machine had to be redesigned a little for it to work with the determination, but it was nothing they couldn't handle. They worked together on it all night. Finally, around the time the other monsters outside of the lab would be waking up, they finally had it finished. If any design for this machine was going to work, it would be this one.

"alright. we'll test it first, same way i used to." Sans picked up a pen and held it up in front of him. "i'll send this pen into the future, one minute ahead, and set to appear in your pocket. if it shows up there in one minute, and we remember sending the pen ahead, then it works. anything else, and i'll _write_ this plan off completely, heh. if it doesn't work, then it can't be done."

"Do you...do you think it's gonna work?" Alphys asked hesitantly.

"honestly? i'm not sure. it could go either way. but...if any design for this machine is gonna work, it's gonna be this one. that's my gut feeling, anyway." He looked over at her, frowning a little. "what about you? what do you think?"

"I'm...I'm not really sure, either." If she was being perfectly honest, she had some doubts. It's not like her experiments with determination were ever a success. There was a sinking feeling in her stomach that it would be the same here, too. But she didn't want to listen to it, either. She really wanted this to work. If it did, they could go back, stop the human before they did anything, and all their friends would be alive and everything would be okay. She wanted to be positive about this. The feeling in her gut wouldn't go away, though, and she didn't really know which thought process to listen to. She had no idea which she really thought. "We won't know u-until we try it, though."

"right. or should i say, uh, _write_." He waved the pen in the air, and they both laughed as he placed it in the machine. "well, it's now or never." Slowly, carefully, he programmed the machine to do exactly what he wanted. He pushed a button, and a bright light came out of the machine.

"I-it's doing something! Is i-it working?" Alphys asked, moving her arms to shield her eyes.

Beside her, Sans was doing the same. "no idea. anything could happen."

In front of them, the machine was shaking a little, the light flickering on and off. There were some thumping noises inside.

"I-I don't th-think that's good...!"

A thin stream of smoke began floating out of something at the top.

"m-me either..."

And all at once, it stopped. No lights, no smoke, no noises. Sans looked inside the machine. The pen looked like it had disappeared.

"the pen's gone. maybe it's working after all. we'll just have to see if-"

And then it exploded.

Neither were actually hurt- a few pieces flew off, but most of it seemed to be internal. A lot more smoke came out of it now than before. Sans carefully checked the inside, but most of it appeared to be busted. It'd be difficult to put everything back together, if possible. But the question still remained: did it work? Was it worth it to try to fix it again.

Sans turned back to look at Alphys, and they waited in complete silence. Neither moved for a full sixty seconds. When enough time had passed, Alphys thrust one of her hands into her pocket. There was nothing there. She frowned, and Sans looked back towards the machine.

"heh...guess that thing was never gonna work after all, huh?"

Alphys walked up to him and put one of her arms around his shoulder. "H-hey, we tried out best, right? Like you said, that was the b-best it was going to get. At the very least we tried, and n-no one can say we didn't try hard enough. A-and now we know. It wasn't a waste of time."

"...i guess you're right." He forced a smile on his face and shrugged her arm away. "i'm not really surprised. i had a lot of doubts about this, you know? i just really wanted this to work."

"I-I know. I wanted it to work, too."

A piece of paper landed at Sans' feet. He squinted down at it; it was one of the machine's reports.

"guess part of it still works, even after all that. no idea how the hell that works out."

"I don't either, but..." Alphys' eyes lit up. "I have an idea that m-might cheer you up! It's not an idea that'll f-fix everything, but it might bring everyone's hopes up. It might help, e-even if it's just a little."

"really?" His smile loosened up as he kicked the report on the ground away. "well, in that case, i'm all ears."

* * *

 **The machine cannot be fixed.**


End file.
